bullshit user fees and taxes

[Heraclitus]

Think we're on the same subject. My claim of "marginal" isn't so much an opinion as it is math. If you suggest that a bracket should have increased to $55,848 but only hit $53,359, that's a difference of $2490 of taxable income. The difference in tax rate between the two brackets is 5.5%, meaning the difference in tax paid is $136.95. Someone in that margin likely moved up there because they are making ~$5,000 more than they were in 2015. I realize wages haven't kept up with inflation but that's a global issue and a whole other discussion.

The point of my original question was to ask what "new" taxes people find so difficult to keep up with. I genuinely want to know why people might be suffering and if they think things will change under a new government. Personally, I don't feel affected too badly. I do think if another government gets in they will pull back some layers on the carbon tax, but I'm doubtful they will get rid of it.

You can't look at it as having 5000 more in pocket, while only paying 137 more, implying they have 4863$ more disposable money.

They would have had to make10,000 more just to break even, and get into that margin. Assuming they did only get the 5000 raise you mention to get into that margin, they actually have 5k less purchasing power and are paying 137 more in taxes.

You can claim 137 bucks (at the lowest end) is "close enough to zero" if you wish, but you can't claim they're "better tax rates", because...math.
You also can't ignore the loss of the purchasing power and wave it off as a "global problem" because it is in the governments power to include it in taxation calculations.
In your example, that's 5137 worth of disposable income per year gone.

What is in this governments power is to adjust the brackets accordingly for real world costs, which is why it is raised. When it isn't raised to match the CPI it is effectively higher taxes. They also have the power to include wage/inflation disparity into the tax calculations.

IRL, it's not hurting me at all either. When the liberals came into power I moved most of my money into foreign currency capital assets.
It turns out I may have been better off buying Canadian RE, but I never predicted this level of insanity. My kids however are feeling it.

 

[Hussell]

Unless battery capacity vs weight really takes a large leap, long haul trucks can never be electric. The weight of the battery would reduce the amount of cargo you could carry by thousands of pounds. Freight charges would go up, nevermind there is a huge shortage of drivers, so to move the same freight we would have to increase the number of trucks. This would put more of a strain on the road infrastructure.

Electric for trucks right now is a pipe dream.

Check out Edsion motors, they are testing a hybrid diesel/electric long haul truck now, they are a small canadain company, Hybrid is the way to go in my opinion.

 

[animal-inside]

lol... not trying to make you mad, it's my nature to be a sarcastic ass.

Fair enough, I'm the same way, but I save it for in person conversation so that its not taken the wrong way..

But to be fair dude, there is no difference between your words and "people on here saying meh" if there is no action. You are right that you can vote and hope who you voted for will make a difference.

I'd follow along if you decide not to pay your business tax bill or other taxes for that matter and post up on here a "play by play" on what type of recourse is thrown your way.

If you re-read my posts, bitching does help.. if you vent to ppl around you properly, you tend to convince some of them to open their eyes to the wrongs.. And I don't ignore any wrong by my government.. even the little ones.. "its just 5$..." "dude, its just a one time 100$ fee, no big deal" etc.. Don't ignore the small shit so they don't try to fuck you over with big shit..

Every political group is corrupt.. every one of them... The entire system needs a revamp.. and don't think it can't or won't happen.. it's happened through out history over and over.. Things will get much worse before it happens though.. when you have to choose between eating or not, thats when ppl wake up and its getting to that point for many ppl...

Another thing that has caused people to wake up in history is when the tax contributors are taxed so heavily that their quality of life goes down the toilet or they are now at the point they have to choose between eating or clothing.. And the whole time they see where their taxes go.. when you are taxed so heavily and then you walk around and see non working people reaping the benefits of your taxes, people getting upset and can only take so much..




I did email my county and asked them a few questions

1)What happens if I refuse to not pay the fee? I pointed out that most home business owners I know never paid it and actually didn't even know about it, so why do I have to pay when they don't.

2)What exactly is my fee going towards.. I quoted a paragraph right from their website explaining why they creared the new bilaw. the quote said they are implementing the new fee so they can "determine business gaps, track new businesses, monitor business activity, and communicate with you more effectively." I told them why do they need to know business gaps in a town of 6K people? Why do they need to monitor small businesses, what the point, whats the goal, how does this benefit anyone? They also stated the fee will help the county promotoe my business.. I bluntly told them they did not promote my business whatso ever last year.. so why should I pay a fee for something that I wasn't given what I was told the fee would go to? I asked for proof of how they promoted my business as they stated the fee would do.

I ended with if my business wasn't promoted and they can't explain why they need to track, montinotor and communicate with small businesse in a town of 5k, then its nothing more then a user fee that just adds to their general revenue..


I really think hard questions need to be asked and answered with every time our 3 levels of government decided to charge its citizens any money for anything.. You'd be shocked how much is just a crock of fucking shit.

 

[aGuyFromWinnipeg]

You can't look at it as having 5000 more in pocket, while only paying 137 more, implying they have 4863$ more disposable money.

They would have had to make10,000 more just to break even, and get into that margin. Assuming they did only get the 5000 raise you mention to get into that margin, they actually have 5k less purchasing power and are paying 137 more in taxes.

You can claim 136 bucks (at the lowest end) is "close enough to zero" if you wish, but you can't claim they're "better tax rates", because...math.
You also can't ignore the loss of the purchasing power and wave it off as a "global problem" because it is in the governments power to include it in taxation calculations.
In your example, that's 5136 worth of disposable income per year gone.

What is in this governments power is to adjust the brackets accordingly for real world costs, which is why it is raised. When it isn't raised to match the CPI it is effectively higher taxes. They also have the power to include wage/inflation disparity into the tax calculations.

IRL, it's not hurting me at all either. When the liberals came into power I moved most of my money into foreign currency capital assets.
It turns out I may have been better off buying Canadian RE, but I never predicted this level of insanity. My kids however are feeling it.

I disagree with your math, but I digress. I probably bit off more than I could chew by opening this can of worms. Just wanted to find the point of hysteria. My parents, who have been Liberal for years are unhappy with JT. However, when I ask what they don't like they have no idea. I have been Libtarded my whole life, it's just what I align with morally, and that part is important to me. Without getting into detail, I haven't been as pleased with some policies and have thought about exercising my voting right to try and send a message. Will I do it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I will cross that road when it comes I guess. If I do, it will be because of things I've discovered on my own, not by reading biased news or people on the internet writing Fuck Justin without any indication we'd be better off without.


To your last comment, I wish I had gotten into Real Estate years ago. I plan to give it a go in the next little bit. Wanted to start in commercial but the banks have tightened up so much for commercial investments, single dwellings might be easiest. This may also help my kids buy a home when they're ready. If I take this on, I will start a thread to share my successes and failures. Maybe it will help someone on this forum. I read a stat that said, 90% of millionaires have done it through real estate. Crazy if true.

 

[Heraclitus]

I disagree with your math, but I digress. I probably bit off more than I could chew by opening this can of worms. Just wanted to find the point of hysteria. My parents, who have been Liberal for years are unhappy with JT. However, when I ask what they don't like they have no idea. I have been Libtarded my whole life, it's just what I align with morally, and that part is important to me. Without getting into detail, I haven't been as pleased with some policies and have thought about exercising my voting right to try and send a message. Will I do it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I will cross that road when it comes I guess. If I do, it will be because of things I've discovered on my own, not by reading biased news or people on the internet writing Fuck Justin without any indication we'd be better off without.


To your last comment, I wish I had gotten into Real Estate years ago. I plan to give it a go in the next little bit. Wanted to start in commercial but the banks have tightened up so much for commercial investments, single dwellings might be easiest. This may also help my kids buy a home when they're ready. If I take this on, I will start a thread to share my successes and failures. Maybe it will help someone on this forum. I read a stat that said, 90% of millionaires have done it through real estate. Crazy if true.

I'd hope you would, as the math used is just gross approximation to demonstrate the principle.

I quickly reread the thread, and other than a couple posts, little has been said about liberals specifically. It's been about increasing taxes and fees, which is demonstrably and undeniably true.
Whether or not another party would do things differently is unprovable, but it is known what this party in power is doing. Could another party do worse? Sure they might.
Historically though, the conservative party has demonstrated higher levels of fiscal conservativism.

I've seen it as a series of pendulum swings in my lifetime. Fiscal conservativism brings in business, economic growth etc.
Then the capital gets concentrated, people demand more of the pie and the liberals get elected to redistribute the wealth.
This goes on, until the conditions created by excess spending and higher taxation drive away businesses, and increase flight of capital, high net worth/ high talent individuals into more income friendly domains, creating a squeeze on the remaining populace.
The pendulum has swung too far for too long and people are now feeling the results and demanding change.
Ontario had a recent example at the provincial level, with McGuinty/Wynne where they swung the pendulum so far that they liberals lost official party status. To Doug Ford no less.

 

[Hussell]

@Heraclitus That is the way it has been since the dawn of politics, vote party in get sick of party vote the other party in rinse and repeat, it's the cycle.

 

[Devson]

O

I dont' need that liscense to do this...

I just need to be registered with the government, which costs money as well lol.. THe fee I mentioned in my op is a municpal fee, not federal

Oh that sucks. Taxes are weird. If you don't transfer your inherited house into a trust then you can end up paying taxes on it. All doctors have their own business just so they can pay themselves out at the lowest tax bracket and then the rest in dividends. It's all legal but it's kind of bullshit because if you don't have the money or knowledge to hire a tax expert then you just end up more poor. I'd hire a tax expert and squeeze anything you can out of these fuckers lol.

 

[Sorbate]

O

Oh that sucks. Taxes are weird. If you don't transfer your inherited house into a trust then you can end up paying taxes on it. All doctors have their own business just so they can pay themselves out at the lowest tax bracket and then the rest in dividends. It's all legal but it's kind of bullshit because if you don't have the money or knowledge to hire a tax expert then you just end up more poor. I'd hire a tax expert and squeeze anything you can out of these fuckers lol.

You don’t save much tax paying in dividends. More or less the business pays the tax instead of you personally. Downside to dividends is you cannot use it as income. So you want to buy a house, dividend money is not counted towards your income.

I have a friend who took pretty much all his pay that way. When it came time to buy a house, he couldn’t qualify even though he made good money.

Everything has an upside and a downside, nothing is “free”

 

[aGuyFromWinnipeg]

You don’t save much tax paying in dividends. More or less the business pays the tax instead of you personally. Downside to dividends is you cannot use it as income. So you want to buy a house, dividend money is not counted towards your income.

I have a friend who took pretty much all his pay that way. When it came time to buy a house, he couldn’t qualify even though he made good money.

Everything has an upside and a downside, nothing is “free”

Hmmm. I think you're off on this one. The biggest advantage of dividends is to allow a person to decide when they want to get paid, picking years where they aren't making much to receive said dividends. You can also distribute to a family member who may have 0 income. Corporations declare taxable dividends and the dividend is then taxed in the hands of the individual shareholder as income. If you want to remove the money from the corp but hold on paying tax you have to hold your dividend shares in an RRSP/TFSA account, you won’t have to pay any tax on dividends received until the funds are eventually withdrawn from the account.

You may be thinking of shareholder loan repayments, those are not taxable and do not count as income. But dividends, whether foreign or Canadian do count as income. There is a difference in how dividends are taxed as income, this depends on the size of the corporation and whether or not they are eligible or non-eligible dividends, Canadian or foreign.

I'm not an accountant but I'm pretty sure I'm fairly accurate with the above. Maybe someone smarter than me can chime in.

 

[Sorbate]

Hmmm. I think you're off on this one. The biggest advantage of dividends is to allow a person to decide when they want to get paid, picking years where they aren't making much to receive said dividends. You can also distribute to a family member who may have 0 income. Corporations declare taxable dividends and the dividend is then taxed in the hands of the individual shareholder as income. If you want to remove the money from the corp but hold on paying tax you have to hold your dividend shares in an RRSP/TFSA account, you won’t have to pay any tax on dividends received until the funds are eventually withdrawn from the account.

You may be thinking of shareholder loan repayments, those are not taxable and do not count as income. But dividends, whether foreign or Canadian do count as income. There is a difference in how dividends are taxed as income, this depends on the size of the corporation and whether or not they are eligible or non-eligible dividends, Canadian or foreign.

I'm not an accountant but I'm pretty sure I'm fairly accurate with the above. Maybe someone smarter than me can chime in.

Just what I was told by my friend. He said his dividends couldn’t be used as income when he went to buy a house. Maybe because dividends cannot be used as a stable income source?
I have never taken dividends myself. My accountant said at my tax rate the savings would be minimal, if any so I just pull a paycheck.

Now I have pulled money as payroll and placed into an rrsp account and not paid tax, well because why pay the tax to just get it back later, didn’t need to call it a dividend. My understanding was TFSA was not a sheltered account, so you pay no tax on the money accrued thru investment, but initial funds placed into the account are tax paid.

But again, I am not sure, just relaying what I was told by my friend.

 

[3ml]

Don't disagree with your points. I've always been torn with the whole electric vehicle thing, I'm not sold on it. However, here is something I found interesting. We went car shopping for my wife this month and ended up buying a Volvo. Volvo has 3 levels of "Hybrid" / electric vehicles. The one I found appealing was their Hybrid (the step before full electric). It is a gas-powered vehicle with an option to plug it into a regular 120v house plug. Has a small battery that allows you to drive 60km on a single charge. To me, this is a great option that should be pushed. Still gas, but would be a greener option as not many people drive over 60km in a day. Even if you had a 50k drive to work you could plug in while working and drive home. The car will automatically switch to gas if the gas runs the risk of going bad. Drastically reduces emissions without over-mining for lithium.

I am not against EVs. Full EV is tough for alot of Canadians due to distances and our climate. We considered a tesla for the woman but once a month she has to travel over 500kms and stay in another city for a week. It wouldn't have the range. I think the use of Hybrid is a much more reasonable solution.

The Carbon tax is bullshit though. The lie that you are somehow better off with it is purely Liberal BS. It's almost impossible to properly calculate with the so many companies having to compensate costs along the supply line. What really pisses me off is that I require a big truck for my job. If I have 2 diesels on the road and I fill up almost daily. That costs me what $40 a day extra?!? I have no choice in this matter as I require the power. So these fucking Assholes Trudeau and Guibeault who have never operated outside of a city or in the real world are robbing me of a significant amount if income every month.

Like you said earlier about the home heating as well it is a necessity so that is another big pile of BS.
I am not sure how much spending money on increasing the R value of your home helps either. I don't know about other provinces but here there are all sorts of charges on your utility bills. I used to travel often. If I unplugged all my major appliances and TVs. Turned the heat down to 12°C and was gone for 4 or 5 weeks, my bills were basically the same as when I was home.

The most annoying thing though is the amount of money that is seemingly wasted in corruption. When ever in history has the government been constantly attending hearings about corrupt BS? While there no honest answers are given. It's disgusting. These fucking scumbags need to go. I know most politicians are shit but this liberal government is truly despicable.

 

[aGuyFromWinnipeg]

Just what I was told by my friend. He said his dividends couldn’t be used as income when he went to buy a house. Maybe because dividends cannot be used as a stable income source?
I have never taken dividends myself. My accountant said at my tax rate the savings would be minimal, if any so I just pull a paycheck.

Now I have pulled money as payroll and placed into an rrsp account and not paid tax, well because why pay the tax to just get it back later, didn’t need to call it a dividend. My understanding was TFSA was not a sheltered account, so you pay no tax on the money accrued thru investment, but initial funds placed into the account are tax paid.

But again, I am not sure, just relaying what I was told by my friend.

I would assume you're correct on being unstable. Perhaps the corp was relatively new. I'm not too familiar with TFSA accounts but it was to my understanding you could place dividends inside it tax-free. Might be something to ask your accountant about if you end up with money you received through payroll just sitting around. Pulling it out when you're 80 would keep some money away from taxes.

I'm similar to you, I've never had such a surplus of money that it has been worth doing in dividends, I've done it because it's year-end and trying to balance things a bit. I sold off my last business last year and thought I'd be happy doing nothing but getting the itch again.

 

[3ml]

Hmmm. I think you're off on this one. The biggest advantage of dividends is to allow a person to decide when they want to get paid, picking years where they aren't making much to receive said dividends. You can also distribute to a family member who may have 0 income. Corporations declare taxable dividends and the dividend is then taxed in the hands of the individual shareholder as income. If you want to remove the money from the corp but hold on paying tax you have to hold your dividend shares in an RRSP/TFSA account, you won’t have to pay any tax on dividends received until the funds are eventually withdrawn from the account.

You may be thinking of shareholder loan repayments, those are not taxable and do not count as income. But dividends, whether foreign or Canadian do count as income. There is a difference in how dividends are taxed as income, this depends on the size of the corporation and whether or not they are eligible or non-eligible dividends, Canadian or foreign.

I'm not an accountant but I'm pretty sure I'm fairly accurate with the above. Maybe someone smarter than me can chime in.

I won't argue this one as I am not an accountant, but I have a very good accountant. He said the last few years alot of the loopholes have been closed on dividends you pay yourself. In my particular situation and how I am structured and with what I am doing there is little to no advantage tax wise in me taking dividends other than paying a tiny bit more tax which I am offsetting in other ways.

Where I lose out if I go with dividends is I don't show income or very little, this doesn't work for me as I am gobbling up real estate.
The other disadvantage is CPP. I was dead set against paying into the Ponzid scheme but my accountant advised otherwise so paying a salary I can contribute to it. Fuck it burns my ass to do it though. I despise CPP

 

[aGuyFromWinnipeg]

I am not against EVs. Full EV is tough for alot of Canadians due to distances and our climate. We considered a tesla for the woman but once a month she has to travel over 500kms and stay in another city for a week. It wouldn't have the range. I think the use of Hybrid is a much more reasonable solution.

The Carbon tax is bullshit though. The lie that you are somehow better off with it is purely Liberal BS. It's almost impossible to properly calculate with the so many companies having to compensate costs along the supply line. What really pisses me off is that I require a big truck for my job. If I have 2 diesels on the road and I fill up almost daily. That costs me what $40 a day extra?!? I have no choice in this matter as I require the power. So these fucking Assholes Trudeau and Guibeault who have never operated outside of a city or in the real world are robbing me of a significant amount if income every month.

Like you said earlier about the home heating as well it is a necessity so that is another big pile of BS.
I am not sure how much spending money on increasing the R value of your home helps either. I don't know about other provinces but here there are all sorts of charges on your utility bills. I used to travel often. If I unplugged all my major appliances and TVs. Turned the heat down to 12°C and was gone for 4 or 5 weeks, my bills were basically the same as when I was home.

The most annoying thing though is the amount of money that is seemingly wasted in corruption. When ever in history has the government been constantly attending hearings about corrupt BS? While there no honest answers are given. It's disgusting. These fucking scumbags need to go. I know most politicians are shit but this liberal government is truly despicable.

Thought you would have chimed in earlier, and didn't think it be about EVs. lol.

I don't disagree, it's bullshit for sure. As I said, I can wrap my head around a fuel tax but we are not really at a stage to be able to avoid gas. Hybrids are for people with money, so who is the carbon tax affecting most? I mentioned we bought a Volvo that is a "hybrid". Because the engine is designed for performance, it doesn't use less fuel than her old minivan. The model that has a 60kms of range on electric was about $12 - $15k more. So it's just for rich people to feel better about themselves environmentally.

We agreed on something, 3ml... what a way to start 2024.

 

[3ml]

Thought you would have chimed in earlier, and didn't think it be about EVs. lol.

I don't disagree, it's bullshit for sure. As I said, I can wrap my head around a fuel tax but we are not really at a stage to be able to avoid gas. Hybrids are for people with money, so who is the carbon tax affecting most? I mentioned we bought a Volvo that is a "hybrid". Because the engine is designed for performance, it doesn't use less fuel than her old minivan. The model that has a 60kms of range on electric was about $12 - $15k more. So it's just for rich people to feel better about themselves environmentally.

We agreed on something, 3ml... what a way to start 2024.

Lol well I think people need to start finding some common ground. The country is so divided that conversations can't even take place anymore. I remeber a time when people didn't identify so strongly with their political view. I think if people could find some common ground we would be much better off.

 

[Sorbate]

I won't argue this one as I am not an accountant, but I have a very good accountant. He said the last few years alot of the loopholes have been closed on dividends you pay yourself. In my particular situation and how I am structured and with what I am doing there is little to no advantage tax wise in me taking dividends other than paying a tiny bit more tax which I am offsetting in other ways.

Where I lose out if I go with dividends is I don't show income or very little, this doesn't work for me as I am gobbling up real estate.
The other disadvantage is CPP. I was dead set against paying into the Ponzid scheme but my accountant advised otherwise so paying a salary I can contribute to it. Fuck it burns my ass to do it though. I despise CPP

Thank god there is a max limit on what you pay to CCP. I believe a bit over 7000. I hit the limit every year.
My wife not knowing had overpaid before, but we not anymore because the govt is super slow returning your money.
They owe my 60,000 from almost a year ago, every time I look it says pending. I wonder if I’ll get the 9% interest they charge us for being late, lol.

 

[3ml]

Thought you would have chimed in earlier, and didn't think it be about EVs. lol.

I don't disagree, it's bullshit for sure. As I said, I can wrap my head around a fuel tax but we are not really at a stage to be able to avoid gas. Hybrids are for people with money, so who is the carbon tax affecting most? I mentioned we bought a Volvo that is a "hybrid". Because the engine is designed for performance, it doesn't use less fuel than her old minivan. The model that has a 60kms of range on electric was about $12 - $15k more. So it's just for rich people to feel better about themselves environmentally.

We agreed on something, 3ml... what a way to start 2024.

Here is the most bewildering thing of all this I believe. The government os not even talking about upgrading the power grid. There is no discussion on the infrastructure required. But hey no more new Internal Combustion engines sold after 2035 makes good headlines I guess??!

 

[3ml]

Thank god there is a max limit on what you pay to CCP. I believe a bit over 7000. I hit the limit every year.
My wife not knowing had overpaid before, but we not anymore because the govt is super slow returning your money.
They owe my 60,000 from almost a year ago, every time I look it says pending. I wonder if I’ll get the 9% interest they charge us for being late, lol.

I think it's just under 7k last year not sure but we pay it both sides since we are slef employed. It's alot and I feel I could do much better with the money on my own. Hell my stock portfolio was up almost 40% in 2023. I don't need anyone to manage my funds.

 

[aGuyFromWinnipeg]

I won't argue this one as I am not an accountant, but I have a very good accountant. He said the last few years alot of the loopholes have been closed on dividends you pay yourself. In my particular situation and how I am structured and with what I am doing there is little to no advantage tax wise in me taking dividends other than paying a tiny bit more tax which I am offsetting in other ways.

Where I lose out if I go with dividends is I don't show income or very little, this doesn't work for me as I am gobbling up real estate.
The other disadvantage is CPP. I was dead set against paying into the Ponzid scheme but my accountant advised otherwise so paying a salary I can contribute to it. Fuck it burns my ass to do it though. I despise CPP

Like I said, the main advantage is to be able to defer paying tax, not getting around it completely. Real Estate corporations are even worse, and yes they have designed it so that owning as a sole proprietor is equal to a corp when owning property. Again tho, it does allow you to defer. Passive income inside a Real Estate corp is taxed at 50%. 30% is held in a ROTOH account, which you claim back when you claim Dividends tho. If you get big enough, there are some loopholes you can explore. If you employ 5 people, you only pay 15% tax, not 50%, as well you can start a property management corp so that it can charge your holding corp fees for "managing". Property management corps only pay 15%. Again, you're correct that there aren't huge advantages but any penny you keep is a penny out of Justin's hands.

There is a decent book you can read called Canadian Real Estate Investing by Cherry Chan. It's an easy read and taught me a few things, kinda like a tax guide for dummies, lots you'll probably know but still worth the $15 if you like reading.

 

[3ml]

Here is a bullshit fee
$93 to register a vehicle. WTF.
So you charge me 93$ for what. To keep track of wether or not I paid it and a tiny bit of Data like VIN, license plate #, address....what a fucking joke.